When the season began Derek Kenway had never scored a hundred in one day cricket for Hampshire.
But against Zimbabwe yesterday he scored his second in four games as a Hampshire side skippered by Will Kendall beat the tourists by 16 runs.
Kenway's latest ton was chanceless and with the last ball of Hampshire's innings he surpassed the 115 that he made in the win against Somerset last month with a shot that you will not find in the MCC coaching manual.
The unbeaten 120 he made from 144 balls on a very good Rose Bowl track is now his career best in limited overs cricket.
But he was on 114 when Douglas Marillier ran up to bowl the last ball of the Hampshire innings - which Kenway promptly swotted over the head of wicketkeeper and captain Tadenda Taibu for his only six.
It was a smart piece of thinking that provided further evidence that Kenway's confidence is fully restored. He stroked 13 boundaries before his inventive maximum hit landed at the foot of the pavilion but he had showed the patience that was necessary throughout the 50 overs before that.
With John Crawley (buttock) and Simon Katich (shoulder) both out injured, Hampshire required responsibility from Kenway at the top of the order and that is exactly what he provided.
Partnerships of 71 in 13 overs with Will Kendall and 50 in 12 with Robin Smith provided the back bone but it was Kenway's unbroken sixth wicket stand of 108 with Dimitri Mascarenhas that gave Hampshire the total needed after being asked to bat.
Mascarenhas made up for his disappointing performance in the Twenty20 Cup the night before, when he was strangely out of sorts against Essex with bat and ball.
Yesterday he was back to his best, scoring his first one day half century of the season from 45 balls in the last over, which cost 21 runs.
Mascarenhas had hit his only six over wide mid on with the previous ball from Sean Irvine. Lawrie Prittipaul was out for a disappointing six-ball duck, trapped lbw as he played across the line, soon after Kendall had been beaten by some sharp wicketkeeping from Taibu.
Nic Pothas, who was awarded his county cap on Wednesday, celebrated with a reverse sweep for six before he was caught at square leg.
It was at that point that Mascernhas and Kenway put on 108 at eight runs an over for 13 overs, a partnership that helped Hampshire to 262, which was reckoned to be 30 runs too many by Zimbabwe captain Heath Streak, the former Hampshire bowler who did not play yesterday.
And so it proved.
Zimbabwe led a spirited fight back in reply despite the absence of Stuart Carlisle, who suffered a hand injury in against Somerset earlier this week and is out for most of the triangular series.
Ed Giddins was Hampshire's star man with the ball, taking 4-33 three years after taking 5-15 on his Test debut at Lord's against the last Zimbabwean side to tour England.
A third wicket partnership of 68 runs between Douglas Marillier and Tadenda Taibu ended when the latter was caught in the deep after a fluent 29.
Hampshire took wickets regularly after that but Zimbabwe were still in with a chance at the end thanks to the big hitting of Andy Blignaut, who smashed 44 from 30 balls before he edged Giddins to Iain Brunnschweiler.
Twenty-year-old Taibu was captaining Zimbabwe in the absence of Streak. He said: "We would have liked out top order batsmen to have stuck around longer than they did and there were a lot of soft dismissals.
"We bowled a lot of wides which in the end was probably the difference between victory and defeat but it was our batting that proved vulnerable because there were some useful partnerships."
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